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Author Topic: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business  (Read 7375 times)

BenRG

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It's still early enough for me to think that Faye and Bubbles will run the repair shop alone. However, in the near future, they may find it necessary to get those with more experience (or skill) in certain areas to run certain aspects of the business to let them concentrate on repairs. Reply to this post to put up your suggestions for staff.

Just to start things off, I think that the initial jobs Faye and Bubbles will need to staff are:
  • Booking appointments;
  • Book-keeping.
The latter is definitely a necessity. Even if they ask Punchbot to do most of the paperwork, they'll need someone to keep their local sales and purchase ledgers just so they can keep track of receipts and invoices for tax purposes. Something tells me that neither Faye nor Bubbles had the skill-set or temperament to handle that.

As for the booking job, once again it's something best handled by a dedicated person. Faye's... personality really isn't suited for it and every minute she's spending on admin stuff like that is a minute she's not spending on revenue-generating activities. As for Bubbles? Well, she could do it but I suspect that she might have issues with dealing with time-wasters who just need to reboot their limbic drivers.

May is a shoo-in for the book-keeper job, IMO. It's her original skill-set after all and I suspect that she'd dance a jig at getting out of retail. Would she be trustworthy? She doesn't want to go back to Robot Jail and that's all the motive she needs. The fact that the job might mean she gets to meet Hank the Dismemberer one day would be a big bonus for her! I can also imagine that she'd enjoy chasing down late payments.

I also wonder if we might see Sam ending up as Faye's apprentice/vocational trainee on some weekends. So long as proper safety measures and insurance are in place, I can't see anyone seriously objecting to a 14-year-old learning useful work skills.
« Last Edit: 05 Apr 2017, 02:28 by BenRG »
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Case

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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #1 on: 05 Apr 2017, 04:55 »

May is a shoo-in for the book-keeper job, IMO. It's her original skill-set after all and I suspect that she'd dance a jig at getting out of retail.

It is?  :-o

Would she be trustworthy?

Something tells me that trust issues are non-issues when the boss' full name contains the words "autonomous combat droid".
« Last Edit: 05 Apr 2017, 06:09 by Case »
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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #2 on: 05 Apr 2017, 06:10 »

Well, having worked in small startups in the past, bookkeeping would be a part time job at best.
Faye and bubbles will have to acquire some decent record keeping skills and supplement with a college program for running a small business and find a mentor.
I think they may have a good one in Dora though finding someone with experience in the mechanical service industry could be of help as well when it comes to industry specific challenges. The mentoring programs I know of are small circles of established local entrepreneurs  Dora may or may not be a member of such a circle as yet.

As for the shop employee roster, a good template to use would be that for an auto-body shop.
If you look at any of the small rural operations, they are at most three people and one of those is an apprentice.

If they are looking to expand their client base outside of the word-of-mouth channels and walk-ins, they will need a salesperson of some sort. Someone with experience in the industry and willing to do commission work. Most likely retired or semiretired.
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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #3 on: 05 Apr 2017, 10:28 »

It is?  :-o

She was in a position to try to 'reroute 750 million dollars into [...] a secure Swiss bank account'. I don't think we know exactly what else she was doing at the time, but probably something involving money.
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Zebediah

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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #4 on: 05 Apr 2017, 10:47 »

All that means is that May had access to an insecure accounting system - or, more accurately, to what she thought was an insecure accounting system. That doesn't necessarily mean she was in accounting herself.

She may have had a job that had nothing to do with money and simply stumbled upon a back door that she thought was unguarded. Being May, she took the money and ran. Just not far enough.
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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #5 on: 05 Apr 2017, 11:34 »

As someone who spends entirely too much time dealing with the bookkeeping at a startup, F & B have a lot of problems before accounting/bookkeeping need attention. It's not important to handle AR when you don't have any A's to R; similarly AP.

What they will need to do is figure out the partnership structure -- do they incorporate or are they equal partners? what happens in the event of dissolution? if a partnership, who handles and owns the bank accounts? ... there are a lot of things.

Bizarre at it may seem, they need, first of all, to retain a lawyer.
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JimC

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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #6 on: 05 Apr 2017, 13:10 »

Grief, cart before horse or what?

Employees have to be paid no matter, the principals can starve together evenly. So no employees until you know what you are going to earn. On the accounts side all that's needed initially is to diligently record everything. Unless things are very different to over here there will be plenty of self employed accounts folk who will come in once a month, once a week or whatever for an afternoon to do what's needed beyond that. In the UK for something as small as this I'm not sure they need to have a partnership at all. Partnership comes with liabilities to each other, far better initially ( at least when I was last doing this sort of thing a good few years ago now) to be separate individuals responsible for their own debts and credits.. 

Faye is going to need to get some customer care skills and fast.  You ca't treat the morons with contempt when you need every moron who walks through the door. Bubbles has by far the greater technical skills (she was training Fay eg May's first skin job) and I bet she's faster too so they need to prioritise her time at work so Faye just has to get her act together and learn to suffer fools joyfully.
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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #7 on: 06 Apr 2017, 22:01 »

If worst comes to worst, they could get sound advice from Dora about Business Accounting. Running CoD has probably taught her a lot, and as Co-signer, she'd have a vested interest  in seeing that they do  well and  run the place and its  finances properly
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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #8 on: 07 Apr 2017, 02:44 »

If worst comes to worst, they could get sound advice from Dora about Business Accounting. Running CoD has probably taught her a lot, and as Co-signer, she'd have a vested interest  in seeing that they do  well and  run the place and its  finances properly

Couldn't Bubbles just install Your First Business 101.exe ?

:)

Also... I'm sure Punchbot could give a LOT of advice.
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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #9 on: 07 Apr 2017, 21:00 »

They probably WILL need a secretary/receptionist who has CPA skills maybe.

I'm oddly tempted to suggest they swipe Hanners, but I dunno how well she'd do in a greasy, dirty robot repair place...  :-D :-P

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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #10 on: 08 Apr 2017, 00:12 »

but I dunno how well she'd do in a greasy, dirty robot repair place...  :-D :-P

How dirty would a robot clinic be? It's not like an auto repair place where you have dirty petrol engines with smoke and dirty filters and burning oil; it'd probably be more like an electronics repair shop, but on a larger scale. In fact I'd think that robot repair would require a relatively clean environment; sophisticated electronics don't do well in smoke and dirt.
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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #11 on: 08 Apr 2017, 00:17 »

And she managed to tolerate band practice in a warehouse.
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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #12 on: 08 Apr 2017, 23:30 »

but I dunno how well she'd do in a greasy, dirty robot repair place...  :-D :-P

How dirty would a robot clinic be? It's not like an auto repair place where you have dirty petrol engines with smoke and dirty filters and burning oil; it'd probably be more like an electronics repair shop, but on a larger scale. In fact I'd think that robot repair would require a relatively clean environment; sophisticated electronics don't do well in smoke and dirt.

I suppose it would be rather like a Tesla repair shop -- no internal combusion engines, just electrics and electronics. I would imagine that some of the moving parts in both electric cars and electric robots might need lubrication occasionally, though, so some oil would probably still be necessary.
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JimC

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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #13 on: 09 Apr 2017, 00:58 »

It's not like an auto repair place where you have dirty petrol engines with smoke and dirty filters and burning oil
A race engineering shop isn't usually dirty. The problem with a retail shop is that everything that comes in is filthy, and if you do a concours standard clean of the entire vehicle, engine bay, underside and all before you start, then your prices are uncompetitive.  So as long as the AIs coming into the shop have excellent personal hygiene then the shop will be inherently clean, but if they are coming in straight off the building site or factory covered in crud then the shop will need a lot more work. But Bubbles doesn't strike me as the type that would be happy working in a messy environment.
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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #14 on: 13 May 2017, 12:19 »

I'd say May for receptionist (yeah, I know - but I think she has the good sense to keep a lid on her foul mouth, and would actually appreciate the job enough to make an effort to be friendly and competent), Punchbot for CPA (probably a once-a-month appointment where they are his customers rather than a full-time relationship where he is their employee).

Offhand I'd say their prospects are good.  They've got an established clientele who trust them and their work already, who will go on needing their services if they go on working at a business Punchbot & Jeremy are trying to take legit.  And if the fighting ring goes legit, odds favor it expanding. When new fighters ask for a recommendation, Bubbles & Faye are likely to get happy referrals.

And by offering (and working with/on) one-off mods as well as simple repairs, they're offering something that I don't think there's much competition for - at least none that we've seen.  They're putting themselves in the position of the 'custom shop' that does custom work to request, where everybody else in town is a dealership that deals in standard models only and makes standard repairs only.
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brasca

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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #15 on: 13 May 2017, 13:06 »

May is a shoo-in for the book-keeper job, IMO. It's her original skill-set after all and I suspect that she'd dance a jig at getting out of retail.

It is?  :-o

Would she be trustworthy?

Something tells me that trust issues are non-issues when the boss' full name contains the words "autonomous combat droid".

I can see them giving May the benefit of doubt.  Bubbles can sympathize being an AI who didn't get any support when she left the military and was susceptible for criminal exploitation. 
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Kugai

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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #16 on: 13 May 2017, 16:50 »

I can see Faye  and Bubbles starting out alone but quickly realising they need extra help in order to keep things going.

Dora is probably going to e a good source for aid in setting things up as small  businesspeople.  Whomever they decide to bring in as extra help is gonna  prove interesting,
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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #17 on: 13 May 2017, 22:13 »

I'd say that this is an ideal opportunity to introduce YET ANOTHER NEW CHARACTER.  :evil:
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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #18 on: 13 May 2017, 22:19 »

High-contact personal service outside the bounds of conventional respectability -- the person they should go to for business advice is Veronica Reed.
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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #19 on: 13 May 2017, 22:35 »

Wait, AI repair is outside the bounds of conventional respectability?
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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #20 on: 16 May 2017, 09:19 »

They could always get free advice from SCORE -- Service Corps Of Retired Executives. They give free nuts n'bolts advice on setting yourself up in business.

The QCverse equivalent would be Sentient Computers Organizing Retail Establishments. Punchbot is probably president of the Northampton/Pioneer Valley Chapter.
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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #21 on: 16 May 2017, 12:21 »

An excellent candidate for new bookkeeper is already in the building, looking at hammers, but she already has a job.  Hannelore, too, has the tidy numbers and balanced books mindset, but she, too, already has a job.

But there's another obsessive-compulsive clean freak already in the cast who IS looking for work, Brun. 
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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #22 on: 16 May 2017, 19:28 »

Brun, because there's bound to be a few AI that are big steampunk fans or general clockwork aficionados.
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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #23 on: 18 May 2017, 17:00 »

And it's always good to have someone who knows how to wield a Harpoon
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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #24 on: 06 Jun 2017, 23:17 »

Brun is a natural fit, not only is she unemployed, but her love for clocks might translate into an interest into the inner workings of robots.

May, too. She's already involved with Faye and Bubbles and I'm pretty sure she would take any other job opportunity she could

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Re: Discussion - The Staff at Faye and Bubbles' New Business
« Reply #25 on: 10 Jun 2017, 19:22 »

This could be a good one for her, too. Faye and Bubbles both have clean records. But if there's still fight club business going on then May shouldn't risk being around them.
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